Simon Donner tells a similar story about the ice around Baffin Island. He also talks about the suggestive (but not yet proven) connections between a warmer than usual arctic and a snowier than usual main-land NA:

The low ice thickness across the Arctic is part of a long-term trend. The current low in the SE Arctic has also been driven by the prevailing weather conditions over the past couple months. As was reported in theCBC News yesterday, a lingering high pressure system has held temperatures well above normal and limited ice formation. That is the same weather pattern that directed the cold Arctic air masses to east coast of North America and to western Europe and caused the huge early winter snowfalls. So when you hear scientists say that record snowfalls could be related in part to climate warming and the melting Arctic, this is what they mean.